“If Atheism writes upon the blackboard of the Universe a question mark, it writes it for the purpose of stating that there is a question yet to be answered. Is it not better to place a question mark upon a problem while seeking an answer than to put the label "God" there and consider the matter solved? Does not the word "God" only confuse and make more difficult the solution by assuming a conclusion that is utterly groundless and palpably absurd?”

—  Joseph Lewis

The Philosophy of Atheism

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If Atheism writes upon the blackboard of the Universe a question mark, it writes it for the purpose of stating that the…" by Joseph Lewis?
Joseph Lewis photo
Joseph Lewis 15
American activist 1889–1968

Related quotes

Jayant Narlikar photo
P. L. Deshpande photo
Eliezer Yudkowsky photo

“Confusion exists in the map, not in the territory. Unanswerable questions do not mark places where magic enters the universe. They mark places where your mind runs skew to reality.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

A comment on Wrong Questions http://lesswrong.com/lw/og/wrong_questions/ (March 2008)
Context: Mystery exists in the mind, not in reality. If I am ignorant about a phenomenon, that is a fact about my state of mind, not a fact about the phenomenon itself. All the more so, if it seems like no possible answer can exist: Confusion exists in the map, not in the territory. Unanswerable questions do not mark places where magic enters the universe. They mark places where your mind runs skew to reality.

“All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.”

William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 8, Unity, p. 49.

Meher Baba photo
W.E.B. Du Bois photo
Thomas Merton photo

“In our creation, God asked a question and in our truly living; God answers the question.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Source: New Seeds of Contemplation

Gautama Buddha photo

“the answer to the persistent question, What is the purpose of the universe? is quite simply: There is none.”

Alexander Rosenberg (1946) American philosopher

The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011)

Ludwig Wittgenstein photo

Related topics